“I arrive Serge Massa“, say the Argentines who are confident in their ability to get out of the well to the battered economy of this country. “Is it going to 2023?” skeptics ask. The Peronist government depends on the success of the new “super minister.” The perception, on the street, is more heterogeneous. “A sea of uncertainty,” said the newspaper The nation about their chances of avoiding collapse. “Expectations versus reality,” he noted. Financial sphere. the beleaguered president Alberto Fernandez he clings to his possible success.
Fernández supported Martín Guzmán in the economic portfolio for almost two years, who signed the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to refinance the 44,000 million dollars that the previous Administration had requested. Silvina Batakis replaced him for less than three weeks: she devoured her the rise in the price of the dollar and inflation, that, if it is not stopped, will end this year in three digits and will also drag the brand new star of Argentine politics.
The president has pondered the “capacity” and “courage” of the man who can save his government or be just one more chapter of the announced collapse. And he has also called for the unity of Peronism, a political movement that, by including leftist and conservative expressions within it, makes a sport out of its internal fights “to get ahead.”
For now, the markets have been merciful to a minister who, strictly speaking, comes to do almost the same as his predecessors. What differentiates him from Guzmán and Batakis is that he will be even more austere despite his promise not to devalue the currency and “grow with inclusion”, said. Desires have a border: reality itself. Massa has to contain the price of the US currency, the main factor in the escalation of inflation, reinforce the exhausted coffers of the Central Bank (BCRA) and, at the same time, reduce the fiscal deficit. In the coming weeks, he expects the main exporting sectors to liquidate their sales and enter the BCRA some 5,000 million dollars on the basis of concessions that months ago would have been unheard of. In turn, Argentina will receive 1,200 million of the same currency from international organizations.
The conflict fronts
The minister has promised maintain the goals agreed with the IMF who criticized the environment of the vice president so much Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. He assured in this regard that the first contacts with the organization have been “productive”. Massa called for progress in the drastic reduction of subsidies for gas and electricity rates. The Association of Senior Staff of Energy Companies (APSEE) warned that a “fee” and that it will be “a scam to the people”. The other front of latent conflict is the social movements. The economic portfolio aims to make better use of the money invested in social plans that are distributed in a country with 40% poor. Those sectors fear a pruning and already show their teeth.
Massa also has his own “expectations”: if he avoids the collapse so announced by the financial gurus and the right-wing opposition, he will be in a better position to achieve his most cherished dream and, in this way, be a competitive candidate in the 2023 presidential elections. Fernández de Kirchner has endorsed his arrival at the Ministry of Economy. During her first government (2007-2011), she had him as chief minister. They ended up facing each other. In numerous Wikileaks cables related to Argentina, revealed by journalist Santiago O’Donnell in his book Argenleaks, Massa expressed to US diplomacy his aversion for the Kirchners. The anger was mutual and lasted for years. They appeased their bitterness in 2019 to defeat at the polls Mauricio Macri. In these unpredictable hours they are also allies. They succeed or fail together.
put your hand in the shit
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“He is a great leader what Argentina needs”, said Malena Galmarini, the wife of the new economic helmsman. There has been no shortage of observers who have compared the arrival of Massa to the Peronist government with what happened to the sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso when, in 1994, he became Economy Minister to Brazilian President Itamar Franco and successfully achieved a stability plan which is still maintained in the neighboring country. Inflation went from 1,100% to 1% in one year. Cardoso was victorious in his crusade and the Brazilians awarded him the presidency at the polls against Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, on two occasions.
Cardoso is a prominent intellectual who had a strong influence in the region in the 1960s. Massa has a very modest library and is not known to have a particular devotion to books. But no one doubts what Fernandez called “courage” and what certain analysts define as an audacity of proportions when trying to take charge of a deranged economy. His wife already anticipated: he will do the impossible to get ahead. “If you have to put your hand in shit, you have to put it“.